Tickled Pink

She turned to him, and I felt her startle. It was like she was trying to say something, but all the breath had left her body. I turned to look.

"Those are yours, aren't they?" My father pointed toward the couch.

My heart sank when I saw my brother's kitten tangled up in Angel's new underwear, the black elastic dangling from one of its fluffy orange ears.

"No," Angel lied, pushing past me, wide-eyed, and rushing out of the house.

I locked eyes with my dad and then we both grinned.

"I probably don't have to say anything, do I?" my dad asked.

I shook my head with a sigh, struggling the thong out of the cat's claws and shoving it into my jeans pocket. "I don't think I'll ever get her back into my room again."

"That's what I figured," my dad said with a satisfied nod.

As it turned out, I was right.

* * * *

My dad still tells that story, sometimes, when I bring new girls around. He tells it

with a funny kind of gleam in his eye. And me, I still have the thong, broken elastic and

all, stuffed into one of my drawers.

Oh, and the damned cat? Moved out with my brother-just a few months too late.

The Emperor’s New Suit

Heidi had four minutes to get back with the dry cleaning, or she was going to get a spanking. To say that Mr. Kaiser's methods of discipline when it came to his office staff were strange was like saying Bill Gates had a lot of money.

Still, Bill Gates didn't have anywhere near the wealth Warren Kaiser had accumulated, even after his father's death. Heidi was paid more per year than most women she knew who’d spent years in medical school. If she had to put up with Warren's-eccentricities-so be it.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck," she swore, checking her watch, which was synchronized to the clock on the mantle in his office and the other one on his desk.

She pushed the elevator button three more times and contemplated the stairs.

Forty eight flights? Even her little Pilates-on-Wednesday and Yoga-on-Saturday and a-mile-run-every-morning body wasn't going to be able to do that in under-three minutes.

"Fuuuuuuck," she hissed again, the elevator dinging, making her heart leap.

She waved the throng of people out, as if that might make them move faster and slipped past the last few stragglers, pushing the number for her floor. She couldn't believe her luck-no other passengers! The doors began to ease closed and she checked her watch again. With a straight shot up, she just might make it!

That's when an arm slipped in and a man stuck his head through the doors as they slid back open. Heidi frowned as he and a small boy child stepped into the elevator and contemplated the number panel. She leaned over and pushed the buttons marked:

to make the doors close.

"What floor, Daddy?" the boy asked, his dark eyes big and round, like his father's, Heidi noticed. His father bent his curly brown head to his son's.

"Forty-eight," he said as the elevator began to move. "Looks like someone else is going there, too."

The man smiled over at Heidi, who tucked a stray piece of blonde hair out of her way behind her ear and returned his smile with a hasty one of her own.

"I can count." The little boy said, sounding proud. "One, two, three, four, five, six, seven-"

"No!" Heidi cried in dismay as the chubby little finger lit up every number as he spoke.

"Anthony!" The man grabbed his son's hand away from the panel as the door slid open at the second floor. He glanced over at Heidi, seeing her white face. "I'm sorry."

"That's ok," she murmured, trying to smile, her whole body tingling with the realization-she’d never make it now.

Her watch said she had two minutes left, and those ticked away as the doors opened again at the third floor, and then the fourth.

Two men in suits got on and pressed the number twenty-three3. When they got off the elevator, she was officially two minutes late.

When the doors opened at floor forty-eight, she was five minutes past, and knew it the minute she stepped off the elevator and saw him.

He was pacing near the front desk, where she knew she should have been sitting five minutes ago, and there were no excuses that mattered. Late was late. She saw him

look past her to the man and the boy and the startled expression on his face surprised her.

"Marcus?" he murmured, looking down at the boy and back up to the man.

"Hey, Warren," the man with the dark, curly hair shook his hand and Heidi stared, nearly dropping the dry cleaning bag to the floor. Warren Kaiser's eyes were wide, his mouth working but no sound coming out

The little boy, Anthony, tugged at Warren's suit. "Are you my uncle Warren?

"I-suppose I am," Warren replied as Anthony wrapped himself around his leg.

"Oh, goodness… Heidi?